Baranoski, Hayduk roar to wins in features at Valley Preferred Cycling Center

2014 World Series of Bicycling on Friday evening. (APRIL BARTHOLOMEW / THE MORNING CALL)

Jeff Schuler, Of The Morning Call

When the distance riders move onto the track, Matt Baranoski is usually no where to be found.

Yet on Friday night at Valley Preferred Cycling Center, the Pennridge High graduate was one of 35 riders at the start of the U.S. 10-Mile Championship.

"My legs were feeling like crap all night, so I just honestly wanted to spin them out and get ready for gym in the morning," said the 21-year-old, adding he hadn't raced anything near the distance since he was a junior rider.

Baranoski, a contender for a sprint berth on the 2016 Olympic team, had no thoughts of winning. His initial plan for the 45-lap event, besides stretching his legs, was to wait and make a push to win one of the higher-value premium laps — winners of selected laps during the race can win cash awards as high as $50 — and then bow out.

But when those laps came, he was found himself back in the pack.

"I was kind of working [hard] so at that point it was kind of like, 'Ah, you made it this far, you might as well finish,'" he said.

Baranoski did more than finish. With a furious surge over the final 11/2 laps, the Red Baron roared past the field to add the 10-miler to his earlier sprint invitational win.

"I had no intention of going for the race win with two [laps] to go, even one to go," a drained Baranoski said afterward. "But it was like, 'All right, maybe I've got a shot at this,' and came over the top. It's one of those moments where you get that stupid look on your face and say, 'Oh, I can do this. So let's do it.' And then you pay for it."

Baranoski's win came after Colleen Hayduk capped a big night herself by overtaking the field to win a rare four-lap handicap event. Based on the earlier events of the night, Hayduk was the lone cyclist at the start line — the others were staggered throughout the first two turns and as far as down the backstretch — but like Baranoski, used a furious surge on the final lap to add the handicap win to her earlier win the points and 500 meter chariot races.

"It was really hard," said a panting Hayduk, who edged Mandy Marquardt at the finish line. "You have to hope the girls around you will work with you to get there — you need all the help from everybody out there — but when you get to the group in front of you, you just have to keep going because there's no stalling."

Baranoski pumped his fist as he edged Yurick Bos of the Netherlands and Brad Evans of New Zealand at the finish line in the men's feature.

"I don't train for anything this long obviously — I mean, I barely made it to the end — but I kind of have that ability to dig down and do something really cool at the end of the race, and that's kind of what it was," he said. "And I'm really paying for it now. But that was fun."

Because his legs felt weak, Baranoski sat out a few races to focus on the nine-man sprint invitational, where he grabbed the lead on the home stretch and eased to a two-length win over New Zealand's Jeremy Presbury and Trinidad and Tobago's Keron Bramble.

Hayduk used three sprint victories, including the last one, to outlast Colleen Gulick in the women's 18-lap points race. Hayduk finished with 20 points. Gulick, who didn't finish higher than third in any of the six sprints, finished with 14 points.

"I wasn't 100 percent positive what the point scores were, but I knew if I won the last one I was 99 percent sure I would win the race, and no matter what I always like to end on a high note, so I figured I'd go out with a bang and win the final sprint," Hayduk said.

Kim Zubris finished third with nine points, including a sprint win, to edge Dana Walton, who had eight points including the other sprint win.

The men's 30-lap points race was much closer, with six riders winning the sprints. Zac Williams of New Zealand, who won the second sprint, secured a narrow win over countryman Patrick Jones by finishing third in the final sprint to finish with 10 points.